


They Ask You To Stay

by ishouldwritethatdown



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Episode: s11e09 It Takes You Away, Multi, based on my very self-indulgent hopes and dreams, literally i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-11-12 21:32:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18018839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishouldwritethatdown/pseuds/ishouldwritethatdown
Summary: The Solitract attempts to coax the Doctor into staying with echoes from the past.





	They Ask You To Stay

“You can stop being Trine, now. Now, please – this universe is _going critical_.” The Doctor leaned on the wall for balance as the house quaked. “If it blows, it’ll take out the anti-zone and my universe with it – you’ll destroy everything you’re trying to connect with.”

The Solitract held her gaze, and bright white light streamed in through the window. She was blinded, and the tremoring stopped, giving way to a dreamy wave of calm. For a moment before her vision returned to her, she feared that she had been cast into Limbo or the Void, trapped in the space between universes.

She was in a long, soft white corridor, supported by triangular beams. Not quite Limbo, then; more like a blank canvas. The interface had disappeared – she was alone. With her itchy foot getting the best of her as always, she chose a direction and walked.

“Hello?” she called hopefully.

Ahead of her was a white mist that backed away as she walked to reveal no more than she had left behind. The Solitract had to be all around her. What was it doing? Why wouldn’t it answer her?

The Doctor had no sooner started to wonder if the silhouette she could make out was a trick of her eyesight than it spoke to her: “Hellooo? Who’s that?”

Her hearts skipped, and her footsteps stopped. _No_.

“Bill?”

“Doctor, is that you?” She had glee written all over her face, that beautiful confused smile that had caught their attention a lifetime ago. “Mate! Looking _so_ good.”

She extended her arms for a hug, but the Doctor didn’t move any closer. She didn’t know what look she had on her face, but Bill, reading it, dropped her arms and her smile. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “Don’t do this. Please. Stop it, I know you aren’t real.”

She frowned and scrunched her mouth up as her eyes moved to the A-frame above their heads. Her puzzle-solving face. “Welll… I feel real. I _think_ I’m real. That means I’m real, right?” She cracked another smile as she looked at the Doctor again. “Metaphysics week.”

The Doctor couldn’t bring herself to repeat what she’d said. Here was Bill, looking at her like she’d always looked at them, being funny and smart and confident. But she wasn’t _real_. Here she was again, an after-image trapped in glass.

“When did you become such a sceptic?” asked a disapproving voice, and the Doctor whipped around. Missy had her feet propped up on a stool as she sat in an armchair, reading a book. She didn’t look up as she spoke. “All that ‘hope’ and ‘possibility’ nonsense, what happened to that? Honestly. What is it like when I’m not here making your life worth living?”

“When did you get here?” Bill said.

Missy looked up with a convincing display of surprise, as if she hadn’t noticed she was there. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m sure it’s all very heartfelt, carry on.” She licked her finger and turned the page of her book.

The Doctor felt a sensation like static in her hands, and when she looked at them, they were aberrating, like a glitch on a computer screen. “You’re still not in control of this reality.”

“You’re wrong,” said Missy and Bill at the same time. Just mouthpieces for the Solitract, she reminded herself. _Don’t get caught up in it_. “We control everything here.” They still sounded like themselves. She expected them to sound possessed or puppeteered, but instead it sounded like they had had a rare moment of simultaneous agreement.

“So you can see that this world is still unstable. Me being here is going to kill us both. This can’t _work_ , no matter how much you want it to.” The Solitract was well-intentioned, but it was lonely. It wanted connection at the expense of everything and everyone around it. It _had_ to see that.

She felt a hand on her arm and turned, expecting to see Bill – but a different familiar smile took her breath away instead. “Sweetie,” River said, “it’s alright. The Solitract can cope with one person, you said so yourself.”

Maybe she – it, the Solitract – was right. It could just be an adjustment period, recalibrating after losing Erik and gaining the Doctor. There had to be a difference in volume – it could just be compensating. Still cautious, but optimistic, she nodded.

River smiled wider and let her hands slide down the Doctor’s arms so that their fingers could link. “Let’s go see the stars.”

She took an apprehensive breath and kissed River’s hand, unable to look her in the eye. “I’ve already said goodbye to these people. These are only… _echoes_. They’re not real. Please let them go.”

Her wife smiled sadly. She returned the kiss onto her hand, and then evaporated into stardust. Behind her, Bill did the same with a small wave, and as she turned, she caught Missy blowing her a kiss before she disappeared too.

The Doctor let herself imagine the particles of light settling back into her hearts, where they belonged. Where they would always be real to her.

She carried on down the passage, surrounded again by white mist, until she made out another silhouette, and despite herself, she felt a flood of relief. The old design was more geometric, with more conventional controls, but she was unmistakable as always – home. The very first version, before they’d worked out how to change the theme, before they’d found all the _rustic charms_ (as Susan liked to say) of an antique TARDIS. She ran a hand over the rim of the console and remembered how she’d felt. The universe at her fingertips, and…

“What is it like out there, Grandfather?” a young voice asked from across the console.

“Susan,” she said dumbly, more of a reaction than a statement.

The girl had a childlike wonder about her, eager for adventure. She remembered how they’d spun it, all that time ago. Running away to see the stars was Romantic with a capital-R, the kind of whimsical and mysterious and reckless adventure that all young people craved. They wouldn’t think about being cast out. They wouldn’t think about fleeing with their lives, just barely. This was a road trip – the biggest and most fantastical road trip in the history and the future of road trips.

“Tell me about the universe,” she begged.

Lost for words, the Doctor found herself smiling. “You think words can do it justice? It’s really big… and incredibly beautiful.”

“So show it to me,” she said, looking at the console as if to press forward into the unknown, but seeming unsure how. “Show me all the wonders of your universe.”

She thought about the little house in the fjord in Norway, where one man and his wife lived. Such a little world to work with. She considered the vastness of time and space, the blazes of suns and winds of nebulae, and then, of course…

The people. Complex, beautiful people, who were never ever small or insignificant. Each one a masterpiece worthy of their own canvas. She remembered the way the Solitract had started to collapse when it was dealing with all of them at once. Trying to compensate around all their hopes and dreams, their pitfalls and weaknesses, had made it crash.

This wasn’t going to work.

“I can’t,” she said.

Susan’s face fell, and she felt her hearts break a little.

“My universe isn’t _meant_ for yours. You’ll break,” she said. She wasn’t sure how well the Solitract could understand her feelings, but she hoped she was conveying regret. She wished she could alleviate their loneliness, she did.

Susan looked hurt. “You’re lying to me because you want to leave.”

“No,” the Doctor replied quickly, and skirted the console to stand closer to her. “You’re my… friend. And friends help each other face up to their problems, not avoid them. This is…” She gestured to the mist all around them, unable to articulate what she was feeling. “You are the maddest, most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced, and I’ve barely scratched the surface.”

Susan looked up and smiled, but it was a compromising smile. The Doctor could tell that the Solitract was starting to understand that she had to leave – the had the advantage of knowing how to spot feelings on that face.

“I wish I could stay,” she said sincerely, “but if either of us are going to survive, you’re going to have to let me go and keep on being brilliant by yourself.”

They looked down. “I miss you,” said the voice of her granddaughter, and she couldn’t pretend that didn’t ache. “I miss it all so much.”

She put a hand on Susan’s cheek and stroked it gently with her thumb. “I know. But if you do this, I promise… I will hold you in my hearts. Along with all of the others that I’ve lost. You and I will be friends _forever_.”

Susan smiled brightly and their hand went over hers, lingering. Then they released her, and as the Doctor backed away, she pressed two fingers to her lips and blew a kiss.

“Goodbye.”


End file.
